Chapter 16 One Bed, No Lies
POV: Sebastian Blackwell
Sebastian Blackwell
The storm grounded every helicopter and flooded the road leading from the safe house.
Elena accused me of arranging the weather.
I considered accepting credit.
The house contained one bedroom, one narrow bed and enough weapons to hold off a small army. Daniel had taken Marco and Teresa to a secure hospital, leaving Elena and me alone until the road cleared.
She stood in the bedroom doorway wearing one of my shirts.
My ability to form rational thought ended.
The white fabric reached halfway down her thighs. Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders, still damp from the rain.
“You’re staring.”
“I’m assessing the shirt.”
“What did it do wrong?”
“Nothing. That is the problem.”
Her lips curved.
It was the first real smile I had seen since the grave.
I wanted to earn another.
I also wanted to remove the shirt with my teeth.
Neither desire was helpful.
“You take the bed,” I said.
“Where will you sleep?”
“The chair.”
She looked at the wooden chair near the window.
“You’ll break it.”
“I am capable of sitting without violence.”
“The chair doesn’t know that.”
Thunder shook the walls.
The power flickered.
Elena placed the music box on the bedside table.
“Daniel sent the photograph for analysis. We can’t decode anything until morning.”
“Then sleep.”
“I haven’t slept properly in six years.”
I understood.
“Neither have I.”
Her gaze moved over me.
I had changed into a black T-shirt and trousers. The scar beneath my collar was visible, along with another across my upper arm.
“How many did your father give you?”
“Scars?”
She nodded.
“Some.”
“That isn’t a number.”
“I never counted.”
“I have.”
I looked at her.
She sat on the bed and touched the pale line along her ribs.
“One from the night my father died. One on my knee from climbing over a wall. The wrist I broke at fourteen. A burn on my hand from making coffee in the motel after my funeral.”
She held up her palm.
The mark was faint.
I crossed the room before I made the decision.
“May I?”
Her eyes lifted.
Then she placed her hand in mine.
I traced the burn with my thumb.
“I hate that you were alone.”
“I chose to be.”
“You chose the only escape you could see.”
“Is that different?”
“Yes.”
She studied my face.
“Show me yours.”
“Elena.”
“You know every mark on my body from reports and photographs. I want the truth you didn’t collect about me.”
I should have refused.
Instead, I pulled the shirt over my head.
Her breath caught.
The scar she gave me cut beneath my collarbone. A white line crossed my ribs where Gideon broke a cane against me at fifteen. A round mark near my shoulder came from the first bullet I failed to avoid.
Elena stood.
Her fingers touched my ribs.
“He did this?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Alexander broke a window. I said I did it.”
“Did Gideon know?”
“Probably.”
Her hand moved to the bullet scar.
“And this?”
“A man who worked for Matteo.”
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
Understanding entered her eyes.
“When you stopped Luca taking me.”
“Yes.”
“You were shot?”
“Grazed.”
“You make everything sound smaller.”
“It usually feels more manageable that way.”
Her fingers spread across my chest.
My heartbeat betrayed me beneath her palm.
“I’m not manageable,” she whispered.
“No.”
“Does that frighten you?”
“Constantly.”
The truth drew her closer.
I touched her waist but did not pull.
“Ask,” she reminded me.
“May I kiss you?”
“Yes.”
I bent my head.
Her mouth met mine halfway.
The kiss began slowly.
No bullets.
No audience.
No anger to blame.
Only Elena choosing me in a dark room while rain struck the windows.
Her arms slid around my neck. I drew her against me and felt the warmth of her through the thin shirt.
Desire hit with enough force to make my hands shake.
She felt it.
“You’re very controlled for a man whose pulse is trying to escape.”
“Control is currently the only thing keeping that shirt on you.”
“Maybe I don’t want it on.”
I closed my eyes.
“Elena.”
“That sounded like a warning.”
“It was a plea for mercy.”
She kissed the scar beneath my collarbone.
Every muscle in my body tightened.
Then the music box began playing.
Neither of us had touched it.
Elena stepped back.
The melody repeated, but not as before.
Three notes.
Pause.
Five notes.
Pause.
Two.
“It’s a code,” she said.
I retrieved paper and wrote the sequence.
The mechanism repeated it four times before stopping.
Elena turned the box over. The white rose symbol had rotated, revealing a narrow keyhole.
“The key from Daniel’s father,” I said.
“Daniel has it.”
Lightning flashed.
For an instant, a human silhouette appeared outside the bedroom window.
I pulled Elena down as the glass shattered.
No bullet followed.
Only a stone wrapped in paper landed on the bed.
I opened the message.
ONE BED. TWO LIARS. ASK WHICH SON SHE SAVED.
Elena looked toward the darkness outside.
“Your mother?”
I read the words again.
One loyal.
One lost.
One buried.
“No,” I said. “Yours.”
Elena sat on the edge of the bed, the interrupted heat between us replaced by calculation.
“Teresa said Alex helped my mother.”
“If the man was Alexander.”
“You doubt her?”
“I doubt everyone.”
“Except Daniel.”
“Especially Daniel. Trust should survive examination.”
She considered that.
“What was Alexander like?”
I returned my shirt to my body before her gaze destroyed my remaining judgement.
“He read poetry badly, rescued injured animals and believed our father could be reasoned with.”
“Kind.”
“Reckless.”
“You miss him.”
“Every day.”
The admission left me exposed in a way nakedness had not.
Elena took my hand and drew me down beside her.
The mattress dipped beneath our weight. Rain blurred the windows, reducing the world to the lamp, the storm and her thumb moving once across my knuckles.
“Tell me something no file knows,” she said.
I almost told her there was nothing. Gideon had catalogued preferences as weaknesses; I had inherited the habit. But Elena deserved a fact that had never been collected for leverage.
“Alexander taught me to swim.”
“That’s in the file.”
“The file says an instructor taught me at seven.”
“And the truth?”
“I fell through winter ice at five. Alexander went in after me. When they pulled us out, he told Father we had done it deliberately because I wanted to learn.”
“Did Gideon believe him?”
“No. But he admired the lie.”
Elena turned my hand palm up and studied the pale scar across it. “And this?”
“I broke a window trying to get back to Alexander after they separated us.”
Her mouth touched the scar.
The gesture was not seductive, yet desire moved through me with painful force. She kissed every place my family had taught me to hide, then looked up as if the tenderness required no explanation.
“Your turn,” I said, my voice rough.
“Mara sings while she cooks.”
“Badly?”
“Elena had lessons. Mara enjoys herself.”
“I would like to hear her.”
“She charges admission.”
“Name the price.”
“One truth each time.”
I closed my fingers around hers. “You’ll bankrupt me.”
“Good.”
She sang one line then, deliberately off-key. I recognised no melody, only the freedom in it. No performance training, no Caruso composure. Mara’s voice filled the borrowed room, and I paid admission with the truth that I had never once sung when anyone could hear.
“Maybe he’s alive.”
“Hope is expensive.”
“So is surveillance. You spend freely on that.”
I looked at her.
She rested her head against my shoulder.
“Hope is not evidence,” I said.
“No. But it can keep you searching long enough to find some.”
I pressed my mouth to her hair.
We remained that way while rain moved across the roof and the message lay between us.
When Elena finally slept, she did it with one hand curled into my shirt.
I did not move to the chair.
Just before dawn, my phone received a location ping from the supposedly dead Alexander’s passport.
It had been used at Voss International Bank thirty minutes earlier.
